Customer centricity in enhancing organisational objectives at a selected government parastatal

Abstract

The selected Government Parastatal is an operating division of a State-Owned Entity, wholly-owned by the South African Government. The parastatal operates 3 800 km of pipeline throughout South Africa, transporting refined petroleum products, crude oil and methane rich gas. The focus of the parastatal is to provide an integrated pipeline service offering to customers, by maximising product volumes, while minimising logistical costs. The parastatal services six of the leading petroleum and gas companies in South Africa through its pipeline service offering. With the assistance of an external service provider, the parastatal conducted a customer satisfaction survey in the financial year 2018/19, with results indicating 70 percent customer dissatisfaction with their current service. The results highlighted areas of concern such as clear and proactive communication, operations and service delivery and delivery on contractual agreements. It is held that being customer-centric means being involved and invested in the organisation, knowing and helping customers to satisfy their needs. Nonetheless, organisations need to develop a new set of operating beliefs that are customer-focussed, with literature proposing customer-centricity as an important factor in the long-term growth and sustainability of an organisation. The parastatal selected for study is a service-driven organisation and its business depends on its customers, thus, it is important to consistently ensure a high-level of customer service. Organisations that focus on a customer-centric perspective have been shown as able to address customer needs. This research project will, therefore, focus on the role of customer-centricity and how it can enhance organisational objectives within a selected parastatal, through an evaluation of the need for a customer centric culture and the significance of employee participation in customer-centricity, in addition to an analysis of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) as a tool in evolving the Government Parastatal as a customer centric organisation. The study will employ a quantitative research design, with a 5-point Likert scaled questionnaire, comprised of closed-ended questions that will be distributed to the targeted population of 400 and a sample size of 199. A web-based survey will be used to distribute the questionnaire and a link emailed to participants, while hand delivering to those without email acces. Responses will be analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 27. At the conclusion of the study, the researcher hopes to recommend the significance of customer-centricity to the Executive Management team of the government parastatal and how it can enhance organisational objectives. The researcher also expects to find a correlation between employee participation in creating a customercentric culture in an organisation and achieving organisational objectives.